Things you might want to know~

7 Legendary Sea Creatures

7. Umibozu

Which literally means sea monk. They are named after its appearance of having a rounded head which resembles the shaved heads of Buddhist monks. Other than the top part of its body above the sea, the true appearance of the Umibozu is still unknown.

Usually, they look like humanoid giants between the size of a ship to humongous. Their skin is black and some say it has a serpentine limbs like a giant octopus while others say they are like misty ghosts with big round eyes.

The Umibozu will appear on calm nights in the seas of Japan and just like the saying “the calm before the storm” a sudden change in weather always accompany its appearance.

Be afraid when you see them because all they want to do is sink your ship. Either by tipping the ship over or smashing the hull of the ship or even physically dragging the ship slowly to its impending doom.

6. Klabautermann

They came from a German folklore and are like the brownies but rather than helping in the houses they help and assist sailors or fishermen on the Baltic and North Sea. They are diligent in helping around the ship and would sing occasionally.

They are said to specifically come from an unbaptized child that died and buried outside of the churchyard. Then only if a tree grows on top of the grave and that particular tree is used to construct a boat or ship will the Klabautermann be born.

So, their image varies but often seen as about 2 feet tall, wears a sailor type of attire, has a tobacco pipe and often carries a caulking hammer. Though on rare occasions they are said to be in the nude.

They are harmless and quite useful rather but if a Klabautermann is seen, it usually means that the ship is or will be doomed beyond repair. Just like that time with Going Merry in One Piece.

5. Kraken

A Norwegian folklore creature that attacks ships, creates whirlpools to drown people in or would wrap its tentacles around the ship dragging it to the bottom of the sea for all we know, the Kraken mistook the ship as a whale and tried to eat it.

Anyways, the Kraken is said to be so gigantic that it is often mistaken to be an island where people would mistakenly land on and they are said to look part octopus part crab or even a whale or turtle-like, but how they exactly look like seem to differ with different accounts.

Maybe its because of its humongous size, it was impossible to see the big picture or because those who come across it became utterly traumatized by it. But the most common thing that it has are tentacles and is very big.

The first detailed depiction of the Kraken was in 1752 by Erik Pontoppidan called “The first Attempt at the Natural History of Norway”. But the Kraken’s popularity started to rise in literature when a poem by Alfred Tennyson called “The Kraken” was published in 1830.

Now people believe that the Kraken is a giant, giant squid.

4. Leviathan

You’ve seen them in a lot of games and it is quite well known as a big serpent like sea creature or just a very big creature that uses a lot of water element attacks. In the early 1890s, scholars found stories that may reference the Leviathan’s battle in the Hebrew scriptures with Yahweh who was the god of ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

In Christianity of the middle ages, Leviathan was used as an image of Satan which is believed to be the visual motif of the Hellmouth itself which is a monstrous animal where the damned would be eaten during the Last Judgement.

But it could also just be a species of a huge extinct whale.

3. Cetus

It is a large fish or whale like sea monster from Greek mythology. Its the sea monsters that both Perseus and Heracles each killed during one of their adventures.

In Perseus’s story, the Cetus was a sea monster summoned by Poseidon to destroy the shores of Aethiopia because of rage. Rather than laughing at the absurdity of Cassiopeia’s statement that her daughter Andromeda was more beautiful than the Nereids.

The Nereids are sea nymphs they are beautiful, kind creatures and their most prominent job was like a personal assistant or Poseidon’s maids. Not to mention his wife is also a Nereid.

Anyways with the creature slowly making its way to the shore, Cassiopeia in panic asked an oracle on what to do. The oracle said that Andromeda, who was also a victim here, had to be sacrificed to Cetus to stop the destruction of their kingdom.

Because of that, Andromeda got chained naked to a rock on the shore as sacrifice, where Perseus saw her. He must have thought she was worth the save and slew the monster then asked her to marry him. Just like that.

While the story with Heracles is almost similar, there’s Poseidon being mad and summoned a sea monster, a princess was to be sacrificed tied to a rock and Heracles saved the princess because he can. Tho, he didn’t marry her in the end, so, almost similar.

2. Bakunawa

It is a dragon-like sea serpent from the Filipino mythology. The legends of the Bakunawa is now slowly being forgotten but in its legend, they are said to be the reason as to why there are eclipses.

The creature has a mouth the size of a lake, red tongue, looks a bit like a cat fish with its whiskers and two pair of wings along its body.

Now, in olden times, people believed that there were 7 moons in the sky. And in one of the stories, the Bakunawa fell in love with a human girl. But no one approved of his love. So angered and sad, he had the urge to eat all of the 7 moons.

He ate all of them, but when he was about to eat the last one, Bathala, who is the supreme being and creator of the universe in ancient Tagalog theology, stopped Bakunawa and banished it away from earth. The eclipse was said to be caused by the Bakunawa trying to escape from its banishment and return to the sea.

1. Sea Trows

There are two types of trows, the land trows and the sea trows. These mythological creatures came from Orkney Islands or Shetlands off the coast of Northeast Scotland.

It was said that initially all trows lived on dry land but something happened between them, could be a civil war and the trows split into two factions. The faction that lost was forced to leave the land and settle in the sea. The sea trow faction seems to be those with defects and imperfections.

Because these sea trows are not in really wicked but they are notoriously ugly and dumb. They are described to have the face of a monkey, has huge unwieldy limbs, has a roundish body, webbed fingers, scaly skin and unkempt seaweed like hair.

In the sea, they would sometimes break the fishermen’s net and even take them away with them in an attempt to steal all the caught fish, while if they were to go on land, they would be slow and clumsy with their movements. They would also like playing tricks on humans but it always backfires on themselves because of the lack of planning.